Among the more popular vegetarian restaurants in Berkeley. All vegan menu offers various options from sushi rolls, soups, salads, rice bowls, noodles, combination sets, and desserts. Small & cozy, busy on weekends. Note: sugar may not be vegan, ask. Cash or Venmo payments only. Open Mon-Sun 12:00pm-8:00pm. Hours may vary. Call ahead to confirm information.
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1686 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, California, USA, 94709
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Last update on 02 Sep 2024 by villain
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83 Reviews
First Review by spidey
Groveey
Points +34
best wasabi ever - Edit
Nice protein rich soup and comfortable atmosphere
Read moreWife lived the soup
Guest
alexandra_vegan
Points +1549
Delicious, fresh, don't miss - Edit
I am a great fan of the Cha-Ya restaurants (there is another one in San Francisco), they are in top 5 best vegan restaurants in the Bay Area for me.
Read moreThe food is always great, delicious and fresh. Service is friendly and fast.
Go there for lunch as they have lunch set and lunch special for 12$. It is a bit pricey but they do use some organic produce and given the food quality I believe it's worth it.
They accept cash only.
I would recommend to try the sushi (full moon plate for example) and the noodle soups.
Updated from previous review on 2016-08-01
Pros: enough seating space, fresh & delicious
Cons: no parking, Cash only
Guest
VeganVentures
Points +92
Tasty - Edit
My boyfriend wanted to visit this location as part of his birthday lunch.
Read moreWe ordered the spring rolls, potsickers, and two main entrees that came with soup.
Unfortunatly I cannot remember the dish names but the appetizers and miso soup were better than the main course.
They were pretty dishes with a variety of veggies & herbs however it did lack in flavor as far as seasoning goes. We ended up leaving half of our meal there.
Appetizers were great though and the miso soup was perfect!
This location only accepts cash!
Pros: Miso soup , Appetizers
Cons: Expensive for the quality of food, Only accepts cash
Guest
SonjaCPA
Points +5270
vegan Japanese - Edit
We came with a friend on Labor Day to have lunch. We were the first ones there, but the place quickly filled up, so come early. We ordered the Cha-Ya Roll to share and it's tempura sushi which was tasty! For entrees, our friend got the sushi lunch combination plate while we got the kinoko noodle soup and vegetable tempura zaru with soba noodles. We were all pleased with our meals and ordered the ice cream sundae for dessert as well. Overall, the food was good, but the service wasn't very attentive and it's a cash only restaurant, but it's definitely worth checking out if you are looking for all vegan Japanese.
Read morePros: vegan Japanese
Cons: cash only
Guest
corinal
Points +1654
The cha-ya rolls are the best! - Edit
This place is AMAZING! The sauces are delicate and packed with flavor. Our only problem was that there were too many options to choose from and not enough time to eat. Our favorite was the Cha ya roll. Wow! The agedashi tofu was also great. We took the advice of another reviewer and put the fried banana on the ice cream sundae and it was so good. Portions were filling and we love how they weren't afraid to deep fry everything.
Read morePros: Friendly staff, Varied and interesting food, Good atmosphere
Guest
arleen3
Points +28
Healthy Japanese vegan food! - Edit
We decided to try vegan Japanese food at Cha-Ya and we are glad we did.
Read moreTheir prices are reasonable and their food is delicious!
We will definitively come back.
Guest
tauberl
Points +472
Excellent place with delicious food! - Edit
We were only in Berkeley for the day and I had picked this as our lunch stop, I'm so glad I did! The menu is large with lots of interesting appetizer, entree, sushi, and noodle options, and the waitress confirmed that there's no egg or dairy in anything! My husband ordered a three roll combo (eggplant, daikon, and avocado) with miso soup, and I got a buckwheat noodle dish with sea vegetables and the cha-ya roll, which just looked too good to pass up!! It was all so, so good and really filling, and the presentation was beautiful (especially the buckwheat noodles, which came in all these different plates/dishes). I wish we had about three more meals here to try more on the menu, give this place a try if you're in the area!!
Read morePros: Great variety on menu, presentation is beautiful/seems authentic , food is delicious
Cons: Cash only
Guest
HollyCalifornia
Points +47
Excellent food and presentation - Edit
Delicious vegan Japanese food. My favorites are the pot stickers (great dipping sauce) and cold buckwheat noodles with tempura. Soups are also very good with delicious broths. Nice atmosphere and there is a "to go" refrigerated case with various entrees, desserts, and sides to go if you're in a hurry (but it's a small selection). Located in a very safe and walkable section of Berkeley and I find that parking is relatively easy. Cash only! (They have an ATM machine in the restaurant)
Read morePros: great food, friendly staff, quiet atmosphere
Cons: cash only
Guest
dragoncat
Points +57
Great Sushi - Edit
I never thought I would enjoy sushi again, and then I found Cha-Ya. It was awesome! We got the Vegan Roll, the Cha-Ya Roll, the Shitake Roll and the Inari. Oh, I forgot to mention we started off with miso soup. Everything was delicious! And the service was excellent. The only flaw was that they were cash only.
Read morePros: Delicious sushi, Good miso soup, Excellent service
Cons: Cash only
Guest
pazyverdad
Points +37
my all time favorite restaurant - Edit
To say that this place is amazing would be a profound understatement. Do yourself the favor. I don't go to Cha-Ya often, but each time that I do, I am blown away. The eggplant tofu portabello dengaku will make your toes curl. The soba noodle salad is blissful. Really, you can't go wrong with anything on the menu. The dishes are delectable and the presentation is highly creative. Go. Savor.
Read morePros: sheer deliciousness, creativity of dishes
Cons: portions are kinda small
Guest
ScienceGuy
Points +45
Favorite Japanese Place - Edit
I went vegan for animal-welfare reasons, not health-reasons. And yet, I've been coming to this largely healthy place for about a decade (not all of it is healthy.) I dare say it's my favorite restaurant. The biggest problem for new-comers is that people don't know what to order. You may want to ease into the unusual mountain vegetables of Japan. Here are my recommendations...
Read moreDRINKS
-Sake: I stick to the locally produced stuff, served hot from beautiful hand-made ceramics.
-Plum wine: A cool, sweet wine, to cool off after spicy bites of wasabi.
-Brown rice tea: Amazing, light, balanced Japanese tea made with toasted brown rice.
APPETIZERS
-Agadashi Tofu: Perfection. Large blocks of carefully fried tofu adorned with kaiware (clovers), dusted with dried red seaweed, and swimming in an amazing broth-like sauce.
-Gyoza: To a typical Northern Californian, this might taste like a variation of a good potsticker, basically.
SOUPS
-Cha-Ya Nabe (vegan sukiyaki): My absolute favorite soup in this world. Too sweet for some. Basically a pot of veggies with a bit of noodles on the bottom and tofu/mushrooms for protein. I especially love the kabocha squash and role of steamed spinach they put in there. The types of mushrooms they use seems to vary by season.
-Yasai(?) with tempura: This has a milder, meatier flavor profile and can be served with tempura. I don't usually get this but my date does.
-Miso: Comes with sushi combos (per menu specifications.) Vegan miso soup with delicate, melt-in-your-mouth silken tofu and moderately-sized slices of seaweed.
OTHER ENTREES:
-Cha-Ya Roll: This is not for the health-nut. It's a delicious sushi roll battered and friend like tempura. It is then sliced and drizzled with a delectably sweet sauce, containing what almost tastes like hints of liqueur. This is a great dish if you are here to eat, drink, and be merry.
-Soba Noodles: Cold, bland, whole wheat noodles. Not for me, but some people really like it.
-Hosomaki Combo: This is a good deal, given the prices at the restaurant. You get a tiny but delicious cucumber salad, complete with sliced radish, golden raisins, seaweed, and toasted soy-nuts. I literally drink the vinaigrette when I'm done. You also get the miso soup (did I mention this place is ALL-VEGAN!) Then you get to pick three sushi roles. I recommend the following roles, in increasing adventurousness:
*Kappa: Just cucumber, pretty plain.
*Avocado: Classic vegan option done right.
*Kampyo: Sounds weird but it's shavings of a gourd originally grown in Osaka. It actually just tastes like a really yummy soft, sweet, paste.
*Shitake: A cold sliced mushroom role, meaty tasting, toothsome. Lots of "umami" flavor.
*Seaweed salad: May take some getting used to if you aren't familiar with the oceanic flavor-profile. (Good source of iodine.)
*Oshinko: A salty, bitter Japanese pickled radish.
*Natto: I didn't order this until recently when a vegan friend of mine from Japan recommended it. It's a slimy fermented soybean mixture with raw green onion. It grows on you if you like strong flavors.
DESSERTS
-Ice-cream Sundae: Fantastic scout of vegan ice-cream covered in green tea sauce and red bean sauce. There's a side of pineapples that seems like it is from a can. It always boggles my mind that they had soaked, sweet, possibly canned pineapple chunks when the rest of the entire menu is so fresh, but they are actually a good compliment to the sundae. It's easily my favorite vegan ice-cream dish, period.
-Fried bananas: To compliment the Sundae if you are sharing.
Pros: best all-vegan Japanese restaurant, food is amazing, food is served beautifully (ceramics are a nice to
Cons: ambiance feels a little cheap for price of food an, food comes out at different times so you could wai, they get pretty crowded and need more waiters
Guest
m@earthville
Points +9518
Creative Shojin Ryori cuisine at its best! - Edit
If i were stranded on a desert island and had to choose one restaurant's food to eat every meal for the rest of my life, Cha Ya would be high on my short list. We've eaten there hundreds of times over the years and never tire of it.
Read moreFirst off, the most important thing to know in order to experience the best of Cha Ya is this: Order the strange stuff - the unfamiliar items. The quite substantial menu includes many typical Japanese dishes that one would find anywhere, but these are not Cha Ya's specialty.
The genius of Cha Ya is in its highly inventive and masterful renditions of the Shojin Ryori vegetarian cuisine the Zen Buddhist tradition. Cha Ya serves Zen temple food at its finest, with some creative innovations of the chef (with creative innovation itself being part of the Shojin Ryori tradition).
The daily specials board, which includes both photos and descriptions of an ever-changing selection of unique dishes, is a great place to start.
From the standard menu, consider the Cha Ya roll, Hangetsu, and the Shattuck roll. They make an excellent dressing for their sea vegetable salad, too.
By the standards of Japanese restaurants, Cha Ya is quite reasonably priced, and best of all due to the salubrious nature of the food one can have a feast without crashing into a food coma afterward. (We should know - we've overeaten there more often than we'd care to admit and lived to tell the story.)
Thankfully, it's now much easier to get a table there since they expanded by acquiring the space next-door.
Note that at lunchtime they accept only cash. There's meter parking out front, but one can often find free parking on the street around the corner (try going west on Virginia street for half a block or so).
Updated from previous review on Sunday July 18, 2010
Pros: Exquisite, unique Zen cuisine, some organic ingredients, reasonably priced
Cons: Service can be slow and erratic, parking sometimes a challenge
Guest
Seahorsea
Points +132
Honest and Simple - Edit
Something I really appreciate about this food is it's sincere honesty. There is no room for lies in most Japanese Food, as what you see is what you get! No hidden weird ingredients disguised into the dishes, which is quite nice if you are conscious of what you put in your body and are on the lookout for sugar, corn syrup, MSG, flours, refined starches, weird food additives, ect...
Read moreI came here after 2 days of non-stop traveling, eating some questionable snacks along the way, and I was just craving simple, healthy, straightforward, nourishing food, something a bit on the detoxifying side... and that is what I found here.
We had the Soba Noodle Salad, which I was pleased to find gluten-free (no wheat in the soba, just 100%% buckwheat). All the vegetables were arranged in an orderly way in their own little colorful sections all piled up on delicately dressed noodles.
We also had the Cha-Ya signature dish, a similar-looking plate, but this time piled on a bed of "seasoned" brown rice. It again was simple yet delicious and satisfying. We also had one Vegan Roll, which I have not much to say about...not bad and not outrageously good.
I really liked the meal overall, the honesty, simplicity and healthiness....and the beautiful presentations.
One thing that could be improved upon is some more flavor though....it does have a tendency to be a tad bland, and the food sure could benefit from a bit of sauces! (I am imagining a nut-butter based spicy thick sauce to drizzle over my rice and veggies!...Ahhh.... in my dreams, restaurants care as much about sauces as I do!)
Pros: healthy, honest
Cons: bland, needs sauce
Guest
veganonfoot
Points +86
Very healthy all vegan Japanese food! - Edit
The food at Cha-Ya is fresh, healthy and a kickback for my living in japan days.
Read moreService is good, food is good, prices are alright.
Will say it's got some pretty healthy items, which can mean not as exciting in terms of flavor, but their are definitely some good menu items. Personally a fan of the nabe, but I think that's from all my times eating nabe in Japan.
Guest
Lily925
Points +129
awful - Edit
Food was soggy and boring. I've been vegan for 40 years and my asian food is above and beyond this. What a diapointment.We won't be going back
Read moreCons: the food
Guest
Ryan MTB
Points +477
Yummy Japanese - Edit
The Japanese curry was delicious. Japanese curry is very thick, like gravy, and it comes with croquet (breaded fried veg patty), vegetables, and brown or white rice. The special comes with a small cucumber/seaweed salad with sweet rice vinegar dressing. I also had the fried banana dessert, breaded & fried with a little syrup sprinked on top, also delicious! Small, quiet place, rather plain looking, good food and friendly service.
Read morePros: Delicious food, Quiet, Free Parking in Rear
Cons: Cash Only, Plain decor
Guest
·X·
Points +20476
Cha-Ya - Edit
My friend and I stopped at this Cha-ya during our trek to Cinnaholic in Berkeley. I had the
Read moresenroppon salad for starters and was impressed with the flavors as well as the veggies, it was quite good. I had the curry udon, also quite tasty and full of flavor, for my entree. Overall, this was a good experience, however I will note that I did not have a good experience during a later visit to their SF location.
Guest
veganamanda
Points +251
Just OK - Edit
I stopped in on a visit to Berkley. At 5:30 the place was empty. It was small and clean with a large vegan menu. The waitress was nice and quick, but not particularly warm and chatty. I got the vegetable tempura. The portion was good, but it wasn't very flavorful. I would try them again, but would try other places first.
Read morePros: priced well, clean
Cons: boring decor
Guest
imightnotloveyou
Points +62
Unique Vegan Restaurant - Edit
There are so many dishes to choose from! I always end up ordering the special...it's always great.
Read moreGuest
Chia
Points +3635
Delicious Japanese vegan food - Edit
I had read about this place on happycow, and here's my Cha-Ya Berkeley location review.
Read moreWas here on a past trip to San Francisco & the Bay Area. My husband and I came during dinner hour, and it was packed. We waited a short while for our table. The space is very small with limited seating. There are a few tables plus sushi bar seating.
The food is reasonably priced and very delicious, authentic vegetarian Japanese food (all vegan suitable). I enjoyed the Cha-Ya rolls and the soba noodle soup.
Pros: many choices, authentic Japanese, fast service
Cons: microwave
Guest
annice
Points +102
Good food at a reasonable price - Edit
We ate here during a recent trip to Berkeley. It isn't fancy, but the food was quite good, portions were large and prices were reasonable. Service was also good. We would go back.
Read morePros: Good food, Reasonable prices, Good service
Guest
vduplessis
Points +72
best vegan in Berkeley - Edit
wow- I have had everything on the menu & LOVED every single thing. Must get the goma ae, any of their special sushi rolls (Shattuck, Vegan, Cha Ya, etc), soba salad, & the specials posted on the wall.
Read moremy only beefs: the wait staff can be rude & this one sushi chef (who is a really sweet guy!) wears the grossest violent & sexist shirts! and be prepared to wait if you come durign prime dining time!
Pros: AMAZING FOOD!
Cons: long wait, rude staff, small tables
Guest
condekedar
Points +9472
Good prices, passable food - Edit
I appreciate the large, all-vegan menu at Cha-ya, but was not thoroughly impressed with the food. My kitsune noodle soup was a bit too salty and didn't stand out in any way. The tempura didn't taste right and the miso soup seemed more like a veggie soup than anything else. My chocolate mousse cake was dry.
Read morePrices at Cha-ya are good, and the space is quaint and inviting. But the food was only decent and nothing special. The service was wonky and curt and all of our dishes came out at random times. I appreciate any all-veg restaurant, but this one has some room to improve.
Pros: Vegan, Prices, Ambience
Cons: Mediocre food, Service
Guest
vegan girl 24
Points +57
amazing! - Edit
this place is ridiculous--all vegan japanese food. sometimes i dream about it....
Read morewhere to start--you will have trouble deciding because everything sounds and IS amazing...but the gyoza are so good, the miso soup rocks, of course the sushi is delicious, and i can't remember what it is called but it is a soup noodle veggie dish that is amazing. top it all off with some warm chocolate cake (if they have it) which is like amazingness in your mouth.
staff are really friendly. prices are reasonable for how delicious it all is. just be prepared--the place is small, so you might have to wait!
Pros: delicious, all vegan!
Guest
P.NutButter
Points +44
Don't remember what was ordered... - Edit
but it really doesn't matter because this place was fantastic. went with 2 others and we all ordered quite a few things off the menu, and everything was fantastic! I have only been once and been meaning to go ever since. the only thing that has put me off- very small with limited seating and there is ALWAYS a wait. Aside from that, highly recommend this place...no one will be disappointed.
Read morePros: amazing vegan japanese
Cons: parking, can have long wait, very small
Guest
Qdebra7
Points +32
Amazing Japense food!! - Edit
This is my favorite restaurant in Berkeley! The salads are beautiful and delicious!! We've tried every appetizer on the menu and they all are amazing - the curries are delicious too. I always have the spinach with sesame dressing salad! Many people rave about the sushi rolls, but I never have room for them. The desserts are also great. For dining out, the place is really inexpensive for the quality of the food you get!
Read morePros: Excellent food, Great service, All vegan rocks!!
Cons: Too small a space, Sometimes there's a wait
Guest
cassius
Points +82
dreamy - Edit
this is japanese food heaven. inventive, fresh, wonderful dishes. I first found this place 6 years ago, and even though I live in NYC now, everytime I'm in the bay area I must make a pilgrimage. You must love japanese food or at least be open to it to dig this place.
Read morePros: woman-run, creative dishes, fresh ingredients
Cons: small, sometimes a wait
Guest
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